Baked Oatmeal with Apples Raisins Pecans ~ No Refined Sweeteners

This seductively sweet apple oatmeal casserole gets its caramel notes from whole dates. Your home will smell amazing as these simple healthy ingredients are baked into the most comforting way imaginable to start your day. No oil or refined sweeteners, just rich satisfying whole food plant-based guilt-free indulgence.

WHY I LOVE IT

Apples and raisins dominate the flavor and the texture of this oatmeal bake taking my tastebuds down a memory lane of familiar foodie delights. If oatmeal raisin cookies and apple cobbler had a baby together and that baby inherited a recessive breakfast gene, this baked oatmeal would be that baby. Ok, that might be a tortured analogy. What I’m trying to say is that this recipe has some serious all-American sweet treat DNA going on, and these inherited traits are deliciously nostalgic. As someone who eats oats for breakfast in some form or other almost every day, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’m a latecomer to baked oatmeal. I am now not only onboard with the viral baked oatmeal craze, I’m a fanatic convert. The nice thing about this recipe in particular is that it’s delicious when soft and a little gooey right out of the oven, just as yummy when it’s cooled down to lukewarm, but also pretty good right out of the fridge. Temperature changes the flavor but it’s good all the different ways and that makes it versatile. Sure, have it for breakfast or make it part of a special occasion brunch buffet, but don’t overlook the fact that this is a cinnamony apple treat that can be enjoyed as a snack anytime at all.

USE ROLLED OR QUICK OATS

For this recipe you can use either rolled or quick oats. Please do not try to use steel cut oats because they simply won’t work. As always, if you are gluten free for a specific medical reason, be sure to use oats that are labeled gluten-free. Although oats are a naturally gluten free grain, most commercial oats are contaminated with some amount of gluten unless they are labelled as gluten-free.

A TART APPLE IS BEST

This baked oatmeal will be delicious with any kind of apple so don’t stress if all you have is a very sweet apple. On my first try at this recipe I made it with a Fuji apple, the sweetest variety of all, because that’s what I had on hand. Although the recipe happened to be one of the few that tastes great on my first try, I did wish I’d used a tart apple for more contrast against the intensely sweet dried fruits. The next time I made it I used Pink Lady, a tart variety that’s especially good for baking, which I thought was perfect. I’ve stuck with Pink Lady ever since, but I think Granny Smith would also be good. Whatever apple you choose, it’s up to you whether you want to leave the peel on or peel your apples. There are health benefits to leaving the peel on, plus it’s less work. I also think the peel looks pretty and tastes great, but it’s entirely a matter of personal preference.

DATES AS A SUGAR SUBSTITUTE

Dates are a nourishing ingredient in their own right, but in this recipe they’re primarily used as a substitute for a refined sweetener like brown sugar or maple syrup—the things I used to believe were essential to the enjoyment of oatmeal. The dates will be processed into the liquid ingredients so that their caramel-like sweetness can be infused into the oatmeal in a way that resembles a refined sweetener but is actually so much healthier. Chopping the dates before processing makes them easier to measure while giving me a chance to check for and remove any pits or hard bits.

My favorite dates for cooking are pitted Deglet Noor because they’re sweet, flavorful, widely available and usually soft and moist. You can also use medjool, or any other kind of date.

FOOD PROCESSOR NEEDED

This recipe requires a food processor in order to create a somewhat smooth cake-like batter. Electronic appliances like food processors and blenders allow us to quickly and easily harness the power of whole plant foods such as rolled oats and dates, eliminating the need for ingredients like oil, sugar, white flour and eggs which are calorie dense and comparatively low in nutrients. Put another way, processing allows whole foods to behave more like refined foods in cooking.

MULTI STEP PROCESSING

In this recipe I’ve tried to avoid steps like presoaking dates, or having to use an additional mixing bowl to transfer the wet batter. What I do instead is break up the processing of ingredients into several steps and then folding in the chunky ingredients—apples, raisins and pecans—inside the bowl of the food processor. In the following sections I’ll walk you through all the steps with photos to show you what things should look like.

STEP 1: PROCESS DRY INGREDIENTS

First you place all the dry ingredients in a bowl of a food processor and pulse until all ingredients are combined and the rolled oats have been broken down into a coarse flour. Then you remove the dry mixture, setting it aside in a small bowl.

STEP 2: PROCESS WET INGREDIENTS

The purpose of this step is to incorporate the chopped dates into the wet ingredients so that they become a sweetener that infuses the oat batter. Without cleaning your food processor, place the chopped dates, plant milk and apple sauce and process until a mostly smooth mixture forms. You can choose to make this mixture as smooth as you like. I prefer it to be not quite smooth, with some tiny pieces of dates still visible.

STEP 3: CREATING A BATTER

This step is about incorporating the wet and dry ingredients into a coarse cake-like oat batter. By now all the ingredients have been blended and broken down so it should only take a few pulses to achieve the desired results. Leaving the wet ingredients in the bowl of the food processor, just add the dry ingredient mix which was set aside in a small bowl back into the food processor and pulse until there are no visible dry areas.

STEP 4: FOLD IN CHUNKY INGREDIENTS

Before you can fold the apples, raisins and pecans (what I like to call the chunky ingredients) into the batter, you’ll have to remove the blade of the food processor. Carefully remove the blade and use a silicone cake spatula and/or your fingers to scrape off any batter that’s sticking to the blade. Then spread the chunky ingredients over the batter in the food processor bowl and gently fold them into the batter with your silicone cake spatula.

STICK PROOFING THE BAKING PAN

Baked oatmeal can, and probably will, stick to most baking pans if you don’t grease them or use parchment paper. Because I’m mostly oil-free, I prefer to line my baking pans with some sort of parchment paper barrier. If you don’t mind using a little oil or plant-based butter, feel free to lightly grease your pan instead. I recommend an 8 inch (20 to 21 cm) round cake pan or an 8 inch square casserole dish for this recipe. Any method for lining a baking pan with parchment paper is fine. Click here to watch a video with one method for lining square and rectangular pans with a sheet of regular parchment paper. I order preformed parchment paper liners online and usually use a square pan with a preformed square liner for this recipe. Unfortunately, these liners are almost never available at grocery stores.

EASY PEASY BAKING

The final step is easy and straightforward. Just spread the batter evenly over your stick-proofed 8 inch (20 to 21 cm) pan, round or square and bake in a preheated conventional oven for 30 minutes at 350 °F (175 °C). You can serve baked oatmeal immediately or wait and serve it later. Baked oatmeal can be prepared ahead of time, cooled, covered and kept in the fridge for several days. Just know that if baked oatmeal is served piping hot right out of the oven it will be softer and gooier than if it cools down before serving. The clean-cut square piece in my featured image for this recipe was cut from a baked batch which had cooled down to room temperature.

VARIATIONS

There are many possible variations to this recipe. Here are a few suggestions.

• Substitute Pecans with a Different Nut or Seed: Walnuts are always an easy alternative to pecans, but if you need to avoid tree nuts altogether, pumpkin or sunflower seeds can be great alternatives as well.

• Switch Out the Raisins: Instead of raisins you can use dried cranberries or cherries. You can also use a larger dried fruit such as dried apricots or figs so long as you chop the fruit into raisin sized pieces.

• Add Chia Seeds or Flaxseed: Chia and flaxseed are often used as binders in plant based recipes because they form a gelatinous substance when they come in contact with liquids. Although this recipe doesn’t need additional binders these ingredients have health promoting properties and add a nice texture. You can add a tablespoon of chia seeds or flaxseed in step 3 so long as you also add one or two tablespoons of extra plant milk or water to compensate for the fact these seeds will absorb some of the moisture in the batter.

• Add or Switch Spices: I felt that using just cinnamon as a spice for this recipe was a simple old fashioned approach. But if you’d like you can add a little ground ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, or whatever strikes your fancy so long as you keep the quantities small. Another option would be to use a spice blend such as apple pie spice or pumpkin spice instead of the cinnamon.

• Add Vanilla Extract: For the sake of simplicity, I didn’t include vanilla extract in this recipe. But a teaspoon of vanilla extract will certainly add a lovely layer of dessert-like flavor.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Whether you’re enjoying your baked apple raisin pecan oatmeal hot, warm, cold or at room temperature adding a topping or two makes it extra fancy and delicious. Plain unsweetened plant based yogurt or homemade simple lemon cashew cream would be my top picks because the cool creamy texture and slightly tart flavor of these toppings is a perfect balance to the crumbly sweetness of the baked oats. You can also add a sprinkling of chopped nuts, toasted shredded coconut or very finely minced crystalized ginger.

related recipes you’ll love